Dahomey cutlass ?

[colin henshaw]

Hi

Many thanks for the comments on this piece so far. To address the points raised :-

The blade on Tim's sword certainly bears a strong similarity to that on mine. But does the handle on Tim's have an Indian look to the decoration ?

The blade on my piece is quite sharp. I will clean off the rust in the near future.

There was a Tibetan sword in the group of weapons I bought, it also has a shark/ray skin handle which bears a superficial resemblance to the handle on this cutlass.

Interestingly, I have just read in a tribal magazine, that the shark was the symbol of Behanzin, last king of Dahomey.

I am quite interested in the weapons of the forest kingdoms of West Africa - has anyone seen one of those oversize razors supposedly used by the famous Dahomey "Amazons" ?

Please keep the views coming on this.

Regards
Colin